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<td><span style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size:20px;font-weight:bold;">PsyPost – Psychology News</span></td>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/people-with-a-preference-for-staying-up-late-show-higher-tendencies-for-everyday-sadism/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">People with a preference for staying up late show higher tendencies for everyday sadism</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Feb 27th 2026, 08:00</div>
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<p><p>A recent study published in the journal <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/07420528.2025.2606285" target="_blank">Chronobiology International</a></em> suggests that people who naturally prefer staying up late might be more likely to exhibit sadistic personality traits. The findings provide evidence that night owls tend to derive more pleasure from inflicting harm on others compared to early risers. This relationship helps scientists understand how harmful personality traits might have adapted to specific environments, such as the cover of darkness.</p>
<p>The research was conducted by Heng Li, a scientist at the Center for Linguistic, Literary and Cultural Studies at Sichuan International Studies University in Chongqing, China. Li designed the research to explore how an individual’s biological clock relates to negative, antisocial behavioral tendencies. Specifically, the scientist focused on a biological concept known as chronotype.</p>
<p>Chronotype refers to a person’s natural physical inclination to sleep and be active at certain times of the day. Some people naturally wake up early and feel most alert in the morning, earning them the nickname of morning larks. Others feel most awake and productive late at night, making them night owls.</p>
<p>Previous studies have linked this nighttime preference with dark personality traits, such as narcissism, manipulation, and a lack of empathy. To explain this link, evolutionary scientists often point to the niche-specialization hypothesis. This is a scientific concept suggesting that certain antisocial traits developed to help people thrive in very specific environments.</p>
<p>During the night, there is less light, and fewer people are awake to monitor or judge social behavior. In this darker, quieter environment, individuals who want to break rules or manipulate others face a much lower risk of being caught and punished. The researcher noticed that past studies had largely ignored how this nighttime preference relates to everyday sadism.</p>
<p>Everyday sadism is a personality trait where a person experiences enjoyment or amusement from causing physical or emotional pain to others in normal, daily life. People with high levels of this trait might enjoy bullying others online or playing cruel pranks.</p>
<p>“During the COVID-19 pandemic, I noticed that individuals with a strong preference for late-night activity — often called ‘night owls’ — seemed more likely to disregard public health guidelines,” Li told PsyPost.</p>
<p>“This observation raised an intriguing question: could there be a deeper psychological connection? One possibility is that these individuals might derive a subtle sense of gratification from the challenges or suffering others experience during a crisis. To explore this further, I conducted a study investigating the relationship between chronotypes (our internal biological clocks) and everyday sadism.” </p>
<p>To test this hypothesis, the researcher conducted two separate studies using different methods. In the first study, Li recruited exactly 170 Chinese university students. The sample had an average age of 22 years and a nearly even split between men and women, with participants coming from various geographic regions across China.</p>
<p>These students completed a series of surveys designed to measure their natural sleep habits and personality traits. The participants answered detailed questions about what time they would prefer to wake up if they had no obligations or work schedules to follow. They also rated how alert they generally feel at different times of the day.</p>
<p>Next, the students completed a widely used psychological survey that measures everyday sadism. This survey asked participants to agree or disagree with statements about whether they enjoy hurting others or having fantasies about causing harm. Because people often lie to look good on psychological surveys, participants were guaranteed complete anonymity to encourage honest answers.</p>
<p>The data from this first study showed a clear, measurable link between sleep preferences and personality. The results provided evidence that students who strongly preferred the evening tended to score much higher on the measure of sadistic tendencies. Men generally scored higher in overall sadism than women, but both men and women showed the exact same relationship between being a night owl and having sadistic traits.</p>
<p>While the first study relied entirely on self-reported surveys from university students, the researcher wanted to verify these findings in a broader population using a real-world task. For the second study, Li recruited 214 adult participants from southwestern China. These non-student adults had an average age of about 33 years, and just over half of them were women.</p>
<p>The participants once again filled out the survey assessing their natural sleep and wake preferences. However, instead of answering written questions about sadism, they participated in a physical behavioral experiment in a laboratory setting. The scientist presented the participants with a modified coffee grinder, which was falsely described to them as a machine that crushes living insects.</p>
<p>The participants were shown three live pill bugs, which had been given common Chinese human names to make them seem more relatable and to make the task feel more cruel. The researcher then gave the participants the option to drop the bugs into the machine and grind them to pieces. The machine was actually altered with a hidden barrier so that no bugs were ever harmed, but it produced a loud crunching noise to make participants believe the bugs were being destroyed.</p>
<p>Out of the 214 adult participants, 25 individuals voluntarily chose to act as exterminators and put at least one bug into the machine. When analyzing the results, Li found that a person’s sleep preference significantly predicted their choice to harm the bugs. Participants with a nighttime chronotype were statistically more likely to choose to crush the insects, providing objective evidence that an evening preference is associated with actual sadistic behavior.</p>
<p>While these findings help explain the biology behind dark personalities, the researcher noted a few limitations to keep in mind. The study relies entirely on observational data, meaning it can only show a mathematical relationship between sleep preferences and sadism. It does not prove that staying up late physically causes a person to become sadistic.</p>
<p>It is entirely possible that the relationship works the other way around, or that another unmeasured biological factor influences both traits at the same time. Future studies might use different methods to track human behavior over a longer period. For example, scientists could temporarily alter a person’s sleep schedule in a laboratory to see if changing their biological rhythm directly impacts their aggressive behaviors.</p>
<p>Additionally, the current research measured sleep preferences by asking people to report their own habits on a questionnaire. People are not always accurate when remembering or estimating their sleep schedules. Future investigations might use wearable technology, like fitness trackers, to objectively record exact sleep and wake times over several weeks.</p>
<p>Understanding this biological link offers practical applications for monitoring harmful behavior in society. For instance, knowing that sadistic tendencies peak during nighttime hours could help internet platforms better moderate cyberbullying when it is most likely to occur. It might also help law enforcement agencies understand when manipulative or cruel behaviors are most prevalent in public spaces.</p>
<p>“It is crucial, however, that the general public does not over-interpret these findings or harbor bias against those who prefer the night. Our results represent a statistical correlation, not a universal rule,” Li noted. “Human personality is incredibly complex, shaped by a vast array of genetic and environmental factors. Simply being a nighttime person does not define one’s character; rather, our research suggests that the quiet, unsupervised hours of the night may simply offer a unique ‘ecological niche’ where certain dark personality traits are more likely to surface.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/07420528.2025.2606285" target="_blank">Night owls and dark hearts: The link between chronotype and sadistic tendencies</a>,” was authored by Heng Li.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/dopamine-and-insulin-interact-in-the-brain-to-control-junk-food-cravings/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">Dopamine and insulin interact in the brain to control junk food cravings</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Feb 27th 2026, 06:00</div>
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<p><p>A recent study published in <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41380-025-03150-6" target="_blank">Molecular Psychiatry</a></em> suggests that compulsive eating is driven by a complex interaction between the brain’s reward system and metabolic signals, rather than a simple lack of willpower. Scientists discovered that dopamine receptors and insulin receptors work together in a specific brain region to act as a brake on the desire for highly palatable foods. These findings provide evidence that disruptions in this delicate balance make it harder to resist sugary and fatty foods, even when eating them has negative consequences.</p>
<p>Compulsive eating involves a strong urge to consume foods high in sugar and fat, even when a person is not physically hungry. Past research points to the involvement of the brain’s reward pathways, specifically the dopamine system, which helps regulate motivation and pleasure.</p>
<p>The dopamine D2 receptor is a specific protein on the surface of brain cells that receives dopamine signals and has been linked to obesity and addiction. Scientists noticed that these dopamine receptors are frequently located in the exact same spot as insulin receptors within the central amygdala. The central amygdala is a region deep in the brain that helps process emotions and motivation.</p>
<p>Insulin is a hormone well known for regulating blood sugar, but it also functions in the brain to help signal fullness. Because these two types of receptors were found together, the researchers designed a series of experiments to see if they interact. They aimed to find out how this potential crosstalk might control normal eating habits and contribute to harmful eating patterns.</p>
<p>“After publishing our <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1811664115" target="_blank">2018 PNAS study</a> showing that dopamine D2 receptors in the central amygdala regulate impulsive behavior, we became increasingly curious about how this circuit might contribute to more persistent and maladaptive behaviors, such as compulsive-like eating. At the same time, most work on insulin signaling in the brain had focused on metabolism, with far less attention paid to how insulin might interact with reward and motivation circuits,” explained study author Ja-Hyun Baik, a professor at Korea University and head of the <a href="https://faculty.korea.ac.kr/kufaculty/Molecular-Neurobiology/index.do" target="_blank">Molecular Neurobiology Laboratory</a>.</p>
<p>The researchers first tested 12 normal male mice and 16 male mice genetically modified to lack dopamine receptors entirely. They trained the animals to press a lever to receive a sugary food pellet. Once the mice learned the task, the scientists added a mild electric foot shock alongside the food reward.</p>
<p>This setup measures compulsive behavior, as the mice had to decide if the sugary reward was worth an uncomfortable punishment. The normal mice tended to stop pressing the lever when the shocks began. The mice lacking dopamine receptors continued to press the active lever significantly more often. This indicates a high level of persistence in seeking the food reward despite the negative consequences. </p>
<p>Next, the scientists used specialized viral injections to safely alter the genes of another group of male mice. This procedure removed dopamine receptors exclusively in the central amygdala. They compared these specifically modified animals to a control group of mice with intact receptors. When subjected to the same lever-pressing task with foot shocks, the mice missing the receptors in the central amygdala again showed increased compulsive food-seeking. </p>
<p>To explore how the cells function, the researchers examined brain tissue from the mice. They found that removing dopamine receptors resulted in a roughly sixty percent drop in the number of insulin receptors in the central amygdala. This loss also impaired the normal chemical chain reaction that occurs inside the cell when insulin binds to its receptor. </p>
<p>“What surprised us most was how closely dopamine and insulin signaling interact in the brain,” Baik told PsyPost. “Despite insulin being present at relatively low levels in the brain, insulin receptors were highly expressed in the central amygdala and strongly co-localized with dopamine D2 receptors.”</p>
<p>The researchers then used a specific chemical compound to artificially activate the dopamine receptors. They found that stimulating the dopamine receptors directly increased the activation of the insulin receptors, even without extra insulin present. This suggests that dopamine activity actively enhances the brain’s sensitivity to insulin, which helps suppress the urge to keep eating. </p>
<p>To confirm the role of insulin, the scientists used a genetic technique to eliminate only the insulin receptors on cells that also contained dopamine receptors. Testing these newly modified male mice in the lever and foot shock task revealed the same pattern of behavior. Without insulin receptors on these specific cells, the animals demonstrated a robust increase in compulsive eating despite the shocks. </p>
<p>“At the molecular level, the effects we observed were modest,” Baik explained. “However, at the behavioral level, they were quite meaningful, particularly in situations involving conflict or negative consequences. Rather than producing an all-or-none change in eating, our manipulation specifically affected how persistent food-seeking behavior became under aversive conditions.”</p>
<p>“This suggests that D2 receptor–insulin receptor signaling in the central amygdala acts as a biological fine-tuner of motivation, rather than a simple on–off switch. In practical terms, this circuit appears to influence how hard it is to stop eating when one knows it may be harmful, which is a core feature of compulsive eating.”</p>
<p>The research team also measured the real-time activity of brain cells in living male mice using a fluorescent sensor. They observed that the activity of dopamine receptor cells in the central amygdala decreased when the mice consumed highly palatable food. The researchers then utilized optogenetics, a technique using targeted light to artificially turn specific brain cells on or off. Turning off these specific cells caused the mice to eat more of the sugary and fatty food.</p>
<p>Finally, the researchers used a specialized dopamine sensor to measure actual dopamine release in the brain while the animals ate. They allowed one group of modified mice unlimited access to the sugary, fatty food for two weeks. In mice with reduced dopamine receptors in the central amygdala, extended exposure to the rich diet led to a weakened dopamine signal. This provides evidence that lacking these receptors impairs the brain’s normal reward signaling during prolonged unhealthy eating. </p>
<p>“One important takeaway is that compulsive-like eating is not simply a matter of weak self-control or willpower,” Baik said. “Our findings suggest that eating behavior reflects an ongoing dialogue between metabolic signals, such as insulin, and dopamine systems in the brain.”</p>
<p>“In this context, insulin does more than regulate blood sugar, it also acts as a kind of “brake” on food-seeking behavior. Importantly, this brake works properly only when both systems are in balance. When dopamine signaling is disrupted, insulin has a harder time exerting its control, making it more difficult to resist highly palatable foods even when we are not physically hungry.”</p>
<p>“This may help explain why resisting certain foods can feel disproportionately difficult in some situations, even when we consciously want to stop,” Baik continued.</p>
<p>“Separately, this interaction may also offer insight into why insulin resistance is often observed in certain brain disorders, such as Parkinson’s disease or schizophrenia. Understanding how insulin and dopamine interact in the brain could eventually inform strategies for managing both metabolic and behavioral symptoms in these conditions.”</p>
<p>But as with all research, there are some caveats to consider regarding how these findings apply to humans.</p>
<p>“It is important to emphasize that this study was conducted in animal models using highly controlled and sophisticated genetic manipulations,” Baik noted. “Although many of the underlying biological pathways are conserved, human eating behavior is also shaped by complex social, psychological, and environmental factors. For that reason, we see this work as identifying a biological mechanism that contributes to vulnerability, rather than offering a complete explanation for compulsive eating in people.”</p>
<p>“While our findings point to a potentially important interaction between insulin and dopamine signaling in the brain, further studies in human systems will be needed to determine how this mechanism operates in health and disease.”</p>
<p>Future research will explore how these dopamine and insulin interactions operate across broader brain circuits. The scientists also plan to investigate how chronic stress or metabolic diseases alter this signaling balance. Exploring these pathways could help develop new strategies for managing both metabolic and behavioral symptoms in humans.</p>
<p>“This study highlights the value of breaking down traditional boundaries between metabolic and neuropsychiatric research,” Baik told PsyPost. “Behaviors such as compulsive eating sit at the intersection of these fields, and our findings show that hormones like insulin and neuromodulators such as dopamine each play multiple roles in the brain.”</p>
<p>“Importantly, it is not just their individual actions, but how these signals interact that ultimately shapes motivation and behavior. Our findings suggest that eating behavior is regulated not by a single hormone or neurotransmitter, but by the dynamic interplay between metabolic and dopaminergic signals that fine-tunes motivation.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41380-025-03150-6" target="_blank">Dopamine D2 receptor modulation of insulin receptor signaling in the central amygdala: implications for compulsive-like eating behavior</a>,” was authored by Bokyeong Kim, Minji Kim, Hyun-Yong Lee, Jung Hyun Pyo, Jihee Seo, Yoon Jeon, Ho Lee, Joung-Hun Kim, Seung Hyun Ahn, Sung Wook Chi, Je Kyung Seong & Ja-Hyun Baik.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/heightened-anxiety-sensitivity-linked-to-memory-issues-in-late-life-depression/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">Heightened anxiety sensitivity linked to memory issues in late-life depression</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Feb 26th 2026, 20:00</div>
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<p><p>Older adults dealing with depression often face compounding challenges when they become intensely fearful of their own physical and mental symptoms. A recent study reveals that this specific fear is linked to worse cognitive performance, lower physical well-being, and increased side effects from medications. The research was published in the <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychires.2025.12.012" target="_blank">Journal of Psychiatric Research</a></em>.</p>
<p>Depression that occurs after the age of 60 brings unique difficulties for patients. Beyond enduring a persistently low mood, these individuals frequently experience memory lapses, trouble focusing, and various physical ailments.</p>
<p>These overlapping symptoms can trigger a psychological condition called anxiety sensitivity. People with this condition harbor an excessive fear of the bodily or mental sensations associated with anxiety.</p>
<p>For example, an individual might assume a briefly racing heart indicates a looming heart attack. Similarly, they might interpret a minor moment of forgetfulness as the guaranteed onset of dementia.</p>
<p>Such catastrophic interpretations can create a vicious cycle of worry and physical distress. The fear itself worsens the physical and cognitive sensations, which then causes even more panic.</p>
<p>Older adults are especially vulnerable to this cycle because aging naturally brings an increase in benign physical aches and minor memory slips. When an older adult experiences a normal symptom of aging, they might panic. This intense reaction is the hallmark of anxiety sensitivity.</p>
<p>Subjective cognitive decline is a common feature in this population. This term refers to a person feeling like their memory is failing, even if medical tests show their brain is functioning normally. It often serves as an early warning sign of psychological distress.</p>
<p>Researchers wanted to understand exactly how this fear of anxiety symptoms affects older adults already diagnosed with major depression. They suspected that heightened anxiety sensitivity might make standard depressive symptoms much harder to manage.</p>
<p>Paolo Olgiati, a researcher at the Kore University of Enna in Italy, led the investigation. Olgiati and his colleagues sought to measure how this specific type of fear relates to sleep problems, memory, physical health, and medication tolerance.</p>
<p>Other members of the research team included Raffaele Ferri, Antonina Luca, Maria Luca, and Alessandro Serretti. Together, they designed an analysis to isolate the effects of this specific fear from general sadness or everyday worry.</p>
<p>The research team analyzed data from an existing clinical trial focused on older adults with major depressive disorder. This trial was originally designed to study incomplete responses to standard therapies. They examined records for 432 patients who were at least 60 years old.</p>
<p>Before these patients began any new antidepressant treatment, clinicians gave them a series of comprehensive tests. The assessments measured their baseline levels of depression, general anxiety, and specific fears about anxiety symptoms. These baseline measurements provided a clear picture of their mental state before medication could alter it.</p>
<p>The team evaluated the participants’ cognitive abilities, relying on established tests for memory, attention, and executive function. Executive function refers to the brain’s ability to plan, focus attention, remember instructions, and juggle multiple tasks successfully.</p>
<p>Clinicians evaluated the patients’ sleep habits and any side effects they were experiencing from previous or current medications. Finally, the participants filled out surveys detailing their subjective physical and mental quality of life.</p>
<p>To analyze the data, Olgiati and his team divided the patients into three groups based on their anxiety sensitivity scores. These groups represented low, moderate, and high levels of fear regarding anxiety-related sensations.</p>
<p>Patients in the high anxiety sensitivity group shared several demographic and clinical traits. They were more frequently women, had fewer years of formal education, and experienced more severe overall depression.</p>
<p>These individuals also suffered from higher rates of panic disorder compared to the other groups. In a panic disorder, people experience sudden and repeated episodes of intense fear accompanied by severe physical symptoms.</p>
<p>When looking at cognitive performance, the researchers found a nonlinear pattern. Cognitive test scores did not simply drop in a straight line as anxiety sensitivity increased.</p>
<p>Instead, patients with moderate anxiety sensitivity actually performed the best on tests measuring global memory and executive function. Those with the lowest anxiety sensitivity scored slightly worse than the moderate group.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, patients with high anxiety sensitivity achieved the lowest cognitive scores of all. The researchers suspect this pattern reflects the way different levels of worry influence a person’s effort during difficult tasks.</p>
<p>Moderate worry might make older adults hyper-aware of potential memory issues. This awareness could cause them to concentrate much harder during testing, temporarily boosting their performance.</p>
<p>However, when anxiety sensitivity reaches a high level, this mental compensation strategy seems to fail. The overwhelming fear and mental exhaustion likely interfere with the brain’s processing speed and memory recall.</p>
<p>Notably, the researchers did not see these cognitive differences across all types of brain function. Tests measuring language skills, visual processing, and long-term memory showed results that were not statistically significant across the three groups.</p>
<p>The researchers also examined how a fear of anxiety symptoms affected sleep. They found that these fears were not related to trouble falling asleep or waking up too early in the morning.</p>
<p>Instead, high anxiety sensitivity was uniquely linked to waking up in the middle of the night. Waking up during the night and struggling to return to sleep is a common manifestation of severe psychological worry.</p>
<p>Quality of life metrics revealed another clear pattern among the participants. Patients with higher anxiety sensitivity reported feeling a worse physical quality of life.</p>
<p>This diminished sense of physical well-being occurred even though their actual burden of medical diseases was no different from the other groups. The fear of physical sensations likely made them perceive their bodies as more fragile or sick.</p>
<p>Additionally, the high anxiety sensitivity group reported suffering from more side effects related to psychiatric medications. This occurred regardless of their actual medical history or the specific drugs they were taking.</p>
<p>Heightened physical awareness probably caused these individuals to notice and worry about minor bodily changes more intensely. They then attributed these normal daily fluctuations to adverse drug reactions.</p>
<p>The research team noted several limitations in their study design. Because the data was collected at a single point in time, the results cannot prove a strict cause and effect relationship.</p>
<p>It remains unclear whether a high fear of anxiety symptoms directly causes cognitive decline. Alternatively, these fears might simply be an early emotional reaction to an underlying brain disease.</p>
<p>If an older adult notices their memory slipping, they might logically develop a deep fear of losing their mental faculties. In this scenario, the anxiety sensitivity is a result of the cognitive decline, rather than the original cause.</p>
<p>The study also excluded patients with severe cognitive impairment or a high risk of suicide. This exclusion means the findings might not apply to older adults dealing with the most extreme forms of depression.</p>
<p>Another limitation involves the way doctors measured the patients’ symptoms. The researchers used an older version of the anxiety sensitivity questionnaire, which might make it harder to compare their data to more modern studies.</p>
<p>Future investigations will need to track patients over a longer period. Observing individuals for several years could clarify whether treating anxiety sensitivity actually delays the onset of dementia.</p>
<p>Researchers also hope to use objective sleep tracking devices in future studies. Tracking sleep with physical monitors could provide more accurate data than relying on patients to remember their sleep habits.</p>
<p>Doctors might eventually use specialized talk therapy to reduce these specific fears in older patients. Easing the fear of anxiety could provide a new way to protect aging brains and improve overall well-being.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychires.2025.12.012" target="_blank">Anxiety sensitivity in late-life depression. Links to cognitive impairment, insomnia, and health-related quality of life</a>,” was authored by Paolo Olgiati, Raffaele Ferri, Antonina Luca, Maria Luca, and Alessandro Serretti.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/probiotics-and-prebiotics-restore-appetite-control-in-mice-raised-on-unhealthy-diets/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">Probiotics and prebiotics restore appetite control in mice raised on unhealthy diets</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Feb 26th 2026, 18:00</div>
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<p><p>Consuming a diet heavy in fat and sugar during childhood can permanently alter how the brain regulates appetite later in life, even if healthy eating habits are adopted in adulthood. However, supplementing the diet with specific beneficial gut bacteria or dietary fibers can reverse these long-lasting brain changes and restore normal eating habits. These discoveries were recently published in the journal <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-68968-2"><em>Nature Communications</em></a>.</p>
<p>The environment a child grows up in heavily influences their physical development. A diet filled with highly processed, sugary, and fatty foods is common in many modern households. Frequent consumption of these energy-dense, nutrient-poor meals can establish unhealthy eating patterns that last well into adulthood.</p>
<p>The digestive system is home to trillions of bacteria and other microscopic organisms, collectively called the gut microbiome. These microbes help digest food, produce vitamins, and send chemical signals to the brain. This biological highway is often called the gut-brain axis.</p>
<p>Through the gut-brain axis, bacteria influence the production of neurotransmitters, which are the chemical messengers of the nervous system. This communication network helps control feelings of hunger, fullness, and even mood. A healthy, diverse microbiome generally sends signals that promote a balanced appetite and stable energy levels.</p>
<p>Prior studies suggest that an unhealthy diet can disrupt this delicate microbial community. When the gut microbiome changes, the chemical messages it sends to the brain also change. Researchers wanted to understand if a poor diet early in life leaves a permanent mark on this communication system.</p>
<p>They also wanted to see if treating the microbiome could fix any lasting damage to the brain’s appetite control centers. The research team was led by Harriet Schellekens and Cristina Cuesta-Martí. Both scientists conduct research at APC Microbiome, a specialized research institute at University College Cork in Ireland.</p>
<p>To explore these questions, the team fed a group of young mice a diet extremely high in fat and sugar. A separate control group of mice received a standard, balanced diet. The high-fat and high-sugar diet was designed to mimic a modern, highly processed human diet.</p>
<p>After this early developmental period, all the mice were switched to the standard, balanced diet for several weeks. This was done to simulate a transition to healthy eating in adulthood. The researchers then observed the adult mice to see how they interacted with food.</p>
<p>They offered the mice choices between regular food and highly palatable, sweet treats. The adult mice that had eaten the high-fat and high-sugar diet in their youth showed a strong preference for the unhealthy treats. Male mice in particular showed an increased preference for drinking sweetened water compared to plain water, while the results for female mice were not statistically significant.</p>
<p>These adult mice also ate more food overall and displayed a habit of crumbling or playing with their food. This food crumbling behavior is a known sign of altered feeding habits and food reward processing in rodents. These unusual behaviors persisted even though the mice had been eating a healthy diet for weeks and had reached a normal body weight.</p>
<p>“Our findings show that what we eat early in life really matters,” Cuesta-Martí said in a press release. “Early dietary exposure may leave hidden, long-term effects on feeding behavior that are not immediately visible through weight alone.”</p>
<p>The research team then looked inside the brains of the mice, specifically focusing on the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus is a small region near the base of the brain that acts as a control center for appetite and energy balance. It contains specialized cells that detect hormones related to hunger and fullness.</p>
<p>In the mice exposed to the early poor diet, the researchers found a reduced number of these specialized appetite-controlling cells. The brains of these mice literally had fewer receptors available to receive biological signals indicating that the stomach is full. This structural brain change provides a physical explanation for why the mice continued to overeat and crave sugar.</p>
<p>The study also revealed that these effects were distinct between male and female mice. Female mice showed a greater loss of the specific brain cells that respond to fullness hormones like leptin. Male mice showed more disruptions in how their brains sensed bacterial components and processed steroid hormones.</p>
<p>To see if these effects could be prevented or reversed, the scientists introduced two different microbiome-targeted treatments. One group of mice received a prebiotic supplement in their drinking water alongside their early diet. Prebiotics are types of dietary fiber that humans and mice cannot digest, but which serve as food for beneficial gut bacteria.</p>
<p>The specific prebiotics used are naturally found in foods like onions, garlic, and bananas. A second group of mice received a probiotic supplement in their water. Probiotics are live, beneficial bacteria, and the researchers used a specific bacterial strain known as <em>Bifidobacterium longum</em> for this study.</p>
<p>Both the prebiotic fiber and the live probiotic bacteria successfully prevented the long-lasting eating abnormalities. Mice receiving either of these supplements during their early development did not show the same intense cravings for sweets in adulthood. Their brains also maintained normal numbers of appetite-regulating cells in the hypothalamus.</p>
<p>While both treatments worked, they appeared to operate through completely different mechanisms. The prebiotic fibers caused massive shifts in the overall makeup of the gut microbiome, encouraging the growth of many different healthy bacterial families. This widespread bacterial remodeling helped restore normal chemical signaling to the brain.</p>
<p>On the other hand, the live probiotic bacteria did not drastically change the overall composition of the gut microbiome. Instead, this specific bacterial strain seemed to act like a targeted medicine. It directly influenced specific chemical pathways, such as the metabolism of the amino acid tryptophan, to protect the brain from the unhealthy diet.</p>
<p>Schellekens highlighted the practical importance of these discoveries in the press release. “Our findings show that targeting the gut microbiota can mitigate the long-term effects of an unhealthy early-life diet on later feeding behavior,” she said. “Supporting the gut microbiota from birth helps maintain healthier food-related behaviors into later life.”</p>
<p>While these results are promising, it is necessary to recognize the limitations of animal studies. Mice and humans have different metabolic rates, lifespans, and brain structures. A treatment that works in a mouse model does not always translate directly to a human patient.</p>
<p>Despite these differences, animal models remain a necessary tool in biological research. They allow scientists to study brain tissue and genetic expression in ways that are simply not possible in human subjects. Mice share many fundamental biological pathways with humans, making them highly effective for uncovering the basic mechanisms of diet and brain development.</p>
<p>Future research will need to explore exactly when these dietary interventions are most effective. In this study, the mice received the prebiotic and probiotic supplements continuously throughout their lives. Scientists still need to determine if giving these supplements only during adulthood can actively reverse established brain changes.</p>
<p>Alternatively, researchers need to confirm if these treatments must be given early in life to prevent the damage from occurring in the first place. The researchers also plan to investigate other areas of the brain that control the reward and pleasure associated with eating. Understanding the full brain network involved in food cravings will help refine these microbial treatments.</p>
<p>Developing targeted therapies based on gut bacteria could eventually help combat rising global obesity rates. As Cryan noted in the press release, “Studies like this exemplify how fundamental research can lead to potential innovative solutions for major societal challenges.” He added that revealing how early diets shape brain pathways opens new doors for treatments based on gut bacteria.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-68968-2">Bifidobacterium longum and prebiotic interventions restore early-life high-fat/high-sugar diet-induced alterations in feeding behavior in adult mice</a>,” was authored by Cristina Cuesta-Marti, Eduardo Ponce-España, Friederike Uhlig, Iris Stoltenborg, Luiza A. Wasiewska, Lamiah Kareem, Dara Hedayatpour, Loreto Olavarría-Ramírez, Cristina Rosell-Cardona, Thomaz. F. S. Bastiaanssen, Gabriel. S. S. Tofani, Benjamin Valderrama, Klara Vlckova, Suzanne L. Dickson, Aonghus Lavelle, Catherine Stanton, R. Paul Ross, John F. Cryan, Timothy G. Dinan, Gerard Clarke, Siobhain M. O’Mahony & Harriët Schellekens.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/incarcerated-men-with-sexual-sadism-show-distinct-anatomical-brain-traits/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">Incarcerated men with sexual sadism show distinct anatomical brain traits</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Feb 26th 2026, 16:00</div>
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<p><p>A recent study published in the <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychires.2025.12.021" target="_blank">Journal of Psychiatric Research</a></em> reveals that men who have committed sexually sadistic crimes possess enlarged brain tissue in areas responsible for processing visual information and understanding the minds of others. These anatomical differences offer a biological window into an extreme form of violence. The physical brain traits identified by the researchers might eventually help medical and legal professionals better understand and assess the motivations behind severe sexual offenses.</p>
<p>The societal impact of these offenses is massive. The United States Department of Justice reports over half a million victims of sexual assault every single year. The individuals who commit these crimes are driven by a wide variety of motives, making them a diverse and complicated group to study.</p>
<p>Sexual sadism is a psychiatric condition where a person experiences sexual arousal and gratification by inflicting physical or emotional pain on another person. When this desire is carried out without consent, it often leads to devastating violence and lasting trauma for victims. The criminal justice system heavily penalizes these acts, often resulting in longer prison sentences.</p>
<p>The psychological traits of people who commit such crimes have been documented extensively. Very little is known about the underlying biology of the disorder. Forensic settings such as prisons are highly controlled environments, making it difficult to bring in advanced medical equipment to scan the brains of incarcerated people.</p>
<p>Individuals might also be reluctant to volunteer for community studies out of fear of exposing their illegal behaviors. Prior research relied on physiological tests, like measuring arousal when subjects viewed images of violence. Functional imaging studies, which measure blood flow in the brain to track activity, showed unusual responses in brain regions linked to emotion and empathy.</p>
<p>Those earlier studies measured the brain in an active state. They could not determine if the actual physical structure of the brain was different in people with the condition. The physical makeup of the brain is often referred to as gray matter and white matter.</p>
<p>Gray matter consists primarily of the main bodies of brain cells, which process information and generate signals. White matter acts as the communication network connecting these processing centers. Structural abnormalities in gray matter often relate to differences in how people perceive the world around them.</p>
<p>Carla L. Harenski, a researcher at The Mind Research Network in New Mexico, led a team to investigate these physical structures. Harenski and her colleagues wanted to map the neurobiology of severe sexual offenses to see if distinct physical traits accompanied the psychological diagnosis. Their goal was to examine whether these specific behaviors corresponded to inherent structural differences in the brain.</p>
<p>To conduct the study, the research team used a mobile magnetic resonance imaging scanner. This large piece of equipment uses strong magnetic fields to take detailed pictures of the inside of the body. They transported the scanner directly to state prisons and a secure treatment facility in the United States.</p>
<p>The researchers recruited 232 incarcerated men to participate in the scans. Exactly half of these men had been convicted of one or more sexual offenses. The other half had no history of sexual offense convictions, though most had been convicted of other violent crimes like assault or robbery.</p>
<p>The participants had to meet strict criteria to be included in the project. They were required to have at least a fourth-grade reading level and a standard intelligence score of 70 or higher. The researchers also excluded anyone with a history of psychotic disorders or major central nervous system diseases.</p>
<p>The team then needed to determine which of the sexual offenders actually met the criteria for sexual sadism. They used a specialized clinical scale that relies on detailed institutional records and crime scene reports. Two independent raters scored each participant based on behavioral indicators, such as the use of psychological torture, excessive physical violence, or ritualistic behaviors during the crime.</p>
<p>Nineteen of the participants met the formal threshold for a diagnosis of sexual sadism. This number represented about sixteen percent of the sexual offender group. The researchers then compared the brain scans of these nineteen men against the men who committed sexual offenses without sadistic traits, as well as the men with no sexual offenses.</p>
<p>Harenski and her team used two distinct analytical techniques to evaluate the brain images. The first technique is a multivariate approach, which looks at spatial patterns to identify entire networks of brain regions where gray matter volume changes together across different people. This method helps researchers see how different areas of the brain might be structurally linked.</p>
<p>The second technique is a univariate approach. This method divides the brain into tiny, three-dimensional cubes called voxels and examines them one by one. It allows researchers to pinpoint specific, isolated regions where gray matter volume differs between groups.</p>
<p>Both analytical methods pointed to the exact same anatomical differences. Men who scored high for sexual sadism possessed enlarged gray matter volume in the posterior temporal cortex, a region located near the back and sides of the brain. This physical enlargement was not present in the other two groups of incarcerated men.</p>
<p>Specifically, the researchers observed increased tissue volume in the temporoparietal junction. This region is located at the intersection of the brain’s temporal and parietal lobes. It plays a major role in social cognition, empathy, and the ability to distinguish between oneself and others.</p>
<p>The temporoparietal junction is heavily involved in mentalizing, which is the process of appraising the thoughts and feelings of other people. In a previous functional imaging study, Harenski found that this exact area became highly active when men with sexual sadism viewed images of people in pain. The new structural scans suggest that this heightened activity might be rooted in a physical overabundance of gray matter.</p>
<p>The brain images also revealed increased gray matter volume in the fusiform gyrus among the men with sexual sadism. The fusiform gyrus is located at the bottom of the brain. It is primarily responsible for high-order visual processing, including the recognition of faces and bodily expressions.</p>
<p>Prior studies on other mental health conditions have linked the fusiform gyrus to the way people process fearful body expressions. While its exact role in sexual violence is not entirely clear, a heightened visual focus on facial expressions and body language aligns with the nature of sadistic behavior. The researchers noted that these visual processing areas are likely engaged during the commission of the crimes.</p>
<p>The team also found higher tissue volume in the putamen, a round structure situated deep within the center of the brain. The putamen helps regulate movement and influence various types of learning. It is also involved in modulating the sensory and motor aspects of pain perception.</p>
<p>The researchers controlled for several external factors to ensure their results were strictly related to sadism. They matched the groups based on age, intelligence, and overall brain volume. They also accounted for psychopathic traits, which often overlap with sadistic tendencies but represent a distinct psychological profile.</p>
<p>Psychopathy is characterized by callousness and a lack of remorse, which are common among incarcerated populations. The team confirmed that the gray matter differences in the temporal regions were tied uniquely to sexual sadism rather than general psychopathy. The researchers also confirmed that past traumatic brain injuries or substance abuse disorders were not statistically significant factors in explaining the brain structures they observed.</p>
<p>The researchers did not find volume differences in areas of the brain strictly associated with basic emotional arousal or reward. Areas like the amygdala, which processes fear, did not show structural abnormalities. The physical differences were confined entirely to regions handling social cognition, pain perception, and visual processing.</p>
<p>The researchers acknowledged several limitations in their study. The men who participated were older, and many had been incarcerated for a long time. It is possible that different anatomical traits might be visible in younger individuals or those who are closer in time to their most recent offense.</p>
<p>It is also possible that some of the participants committed additional crimes that were never discovered. A person in the non-sexual offense group might have a hidden history of sexual violence. Undisclosed crimes could affect the accuracy of the group classifications.</p>
<p>The results also may not apply to other forms of sadistic behavior. The findings are specific to nonconsensual, violent sexual sadism. It is entirely unknown if similar brain structures exist in people who practice consensual sadomasochism or those who exhibit non-sexual everyday sadism.</p>
<p>Future research will need to explore exactly how these structural differences develop. Scientists hope to investigate the age at which these gray matter changes first appear in the brain. They also aim to study how these physical differences directly influence the specific cognitive processes that drive sexually aggressive behavior.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychires.2025.12.021" target="_blank">Increased gray matter within temporal cortical networks in sexual sadism</a>,” was authored by Carla L. Harenski, Fadwa Cazala, J. Michael Maurer, Keith A. Harenski, Nathaniel E. Anderson, Jean Decety, Vince D. Calhoun, Kent A. Kiehl.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/right-wing-authoritarianism-is-linked-to-belief-in-the-paranormal-independent-of-cognitive-style/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">Right-wing authoritarianism is linked to belief in the paranormal, independent of cognitive style</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Feb 26th 2026, 14:00</div>
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<p><p>Recent research published in <em><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00224545.2026.2632337" target="_blank">The Journal of Social Psychology</a></em> suggests that individuals who endorse certain right-wing political ideologies are more likely to believe in paranormal phenomena. The findings indicate that while a person’s thinking style plays a role in their beliefs, it does not fully explain why right-wing ideologies are linked to accepting the paranormal. This provides evidence that the relationship between political views and supernatural beliefs is driven by multiple, distinct psychological factors.</p>
<p>The study was conducted by Alexander Jedinger, a senior researcher at the GESIS Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences, and Pascal Siegers, head of the Research Data Center at the same institute. The researchers wanted to explore the psychological mechanisms that connect political beliefs to ideas that contradict scientific principles.</p>
<p>Past studies have hinted at a link between right-wing political views and a susceptibility to supernatural thinking. Jedinger and Siegers aimed to break down this relationship by examining specific aspects of right-wing ideology rather than just general political labels.</p>
<p>“There have long been speculations that esotericism and beliefs in the paranormal are related to right-wing beliefs,” Jedinger told PsyPost. “There is much research in history and cultural studies on this topic, and of course, there are a lot of references in popular culture to Nazi esotericism, exemplified in movies such as Indiana Jones and Hellboy. However, there was little quantitative evidence on these kinds of relationships,”</p>
<p>Specifically, the researchers looked at two traits known as right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation. Right-wing authoritarianism describes a preference for strict obedience to authority, conformity to traditional social norms, and hostility toward people who break those norms.</p>
<p>Social dominance orientation describes a preference for hierarchical societies where dominant groups hold power over subordinate groups. The scientists sought to test whether these two specific ideological traits predict belief in the paranormal.</p>
<p>They also wanted to see if cognitive styles, meaning the way people process information, could account for this connection. People generally rely on two types of thinking: intuitive thinking, which relies on fast gut feelings, and analytical thinking, which involves slow and deliberate reasoning.</p>
<p>The scientists hypothesized that right-wing individuals might favor intuitive thinking, which could make them more accepting of paranormal ideas. They designed their study to test if this shared thinking style was the main bridge between political ideology and the paranormal.</p>
<p>To test these ideas, the researchers recruited a sample of 1,139 adult participants from Germany. They used an online survey company to ensure the participants matched the general German population in terms of age, gender, education, and region.</p>
<p>The survey included a modified scale to measure paranormal beliefs, which focused on concepts that violate basic scientific principles. Participants rated their belief in phenomena like mind reading, witchcraft, lucky charms, ghosts, and astrology.</p>
<p>The researchers separated traditional religious beliefs from paranormal beliefs, as religion usually involves organized doctrines rather than a belief in magical forces that can be directly manipulated. They also measured general political views by asking participants to place themselves on a left-to-right political spectrum.</p>
<p>To gauge specific ideological traits, the participants completed a nine-item questionnaire measuring right-wing authoritarianism and an eight-item questionnaire measuring social dominance orientation. The researchers then measured cognitive styles using both self-reported and objective tests.</p>
<p>Participants answered questions about how much they enjoy deep thinking and how much they rely on their intuition. They also completed a cognitive reflection test, which presents tricky reasoning problems that require people to pause and suppress an immediate, intuitive answer to find the logically correct one.</p>
<p>In their statistical models, the researchers also controlled for age, gender, education level, and general religiosity. This allowed them to isolate the specific effects of political ideology and thinking styles without other demographic factors skewing the results.</p>
<p>When analyzing the data, the scientists found that disbelief in the paranormal was generally more common than belief among the participants. Men, older individuals, and those with higher levels of education were less likely to believe in paranormal phenomena.</p>
<p>However, those who scored higher in right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation were more likely to endorse paranormal concepts. Simply identifying as right-wing on the political spectrum did not predict paranormal beliefs on its own.</p>
<p>The researchers also found that people who relied heavily on intuitive thinking tended to have stronger paranormal beliefs. Those who performed well on the objective analytical thinking test were less likely to believe in the supernatural.</p>
<p>“Paranormal beliefs are linked to authoritarian attitudes and, to a lesser extent, to social dominance orientations, i.e., the belief that societies should be based on hierarchies between social groups,” Jedinger said. “The correlation is moderate to weak, but very robust.”</p>
<p>When the scientists added cognitive styles to their statistical models, they expected the link between right-wing ideology and paranormal beliefs to disappear. They assumed that a lack of analytical thinking was the primary reason individuals with right-wing views leaned toward the paranormal.</p>
<p>Instead, the results showed that right-wing ideology and cognitive styles independently contributed to paranormal beliefs. Accounting for analytical and intuitive thinking did not substantially weaken the connection between authoritarian or dominance-oriented views and belief in the supernatural.</p>
<p>“We hypothesized that associations between paranormal beliefs and right-wing ideology may be explained by a shared propensity to think intuitively about the world,” Jedinger told PsyPost. “However, as it turns out, intuitive thinking was not the key to explaining this association. Intuitive thinking was related to paranormal beliefs, corroborating previous findings, but controlling for thinking styles did not eliminate the observed relationship. Although our original hypothesis turned out to be wrong, we learned something important.”</p>
<p>The scientists caution against misinterpreting the results as proving that paranormal beliefs cause far-right political views or that everyone who has paranormal beliefs also holds far-right political views. Because the study relied on observational survey data, it is impossible to determine exact cause and effect.</p>
<p>“We suspect that there are other explanations for these correlations,” Jedinger said. “One interesting approach is that emotional factors, such as the shared desire for security and control, play a role here.”</p>
<p>The research was also conducted in Germany, a country with a specific historical context where esoteric ideas have occasionally overlapped with far-right movements. The researchers recommend that future studies replicate these findings in other cultures to see if the pattern holds worldwide.</p>
<p>Future research could also benefit from moving beyond standard surveys. The scientists suggest that future projects should experimentally manipulate how people think in the moment to better understand how analytical and intuitive mindsets influence both political and supernatural beliefs.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00224545.2026.2632337" target="_blank">The politics of the paranormal: the relationship between paranormal beliefs and right-wing ideology</a>,” was authored by Alexander Jedinger and Pascal Siegers.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/ai-therapy-is-rated-higher-for-empathy-until-people-learn-a-machine-wrote-the-text/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">AI therapy is rated higher for empathy until people learn a machine wrote the text</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Feb 26th 2026, 12:00</div>
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<p><p>New research published in the <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s41347-025-00544-9" target="_blank">Journal of Technology in Behavioral Science</a></em> suggests that how people evaluate a therapeutic conversation depends heavily on whether they believe a human or an artificial intelligence is speaking. The study provides evidence that people tend to rate therapy transcripts higher in empathy and professionalism when they think a human wrote them, even if the text was actually generated by a machine. These findings highlight that trust and transparency play a major role as digital tools enter the mental health space.</p>
<p>Global mental health care currently faces significant challenges. There is an acute shortage of trained professionals, which leaves many individuals without the support they need. At the same time, traditional therapy models require in-person visits that can be too expensive or inaccessible for wide segments of the population.</p>
<p>To bridge this gap, technology companies and healthcare providers are increasingly exploring artificial intelligence. Computer programs designed to simulate conversation, known as chatbots, offer a possible way to provide immediate support to people experiencing mild to moderate mental health issues.</p>
<p>However, scientists want to know if a machine can effectively simulate the qualities that make therapy successful. In psychological treatment, the feeling of being understood and supported is a major part of the healing process.</p>
<p>Empathy involves multiple layers, including cognitive empathy, which means understanding another person’s thoughts, and emotional empathy, which means sharing their feelings. Because a computer does not actually feel emotions, some experts question whether an algorithm can truly replicate this human connection.</p>
<p>“After COVID, we saw a sharp rise in mental-health concerns, but the capacity to provide care didn’t grow at the same pace—especially in countries like India,” said study author Gagan Jain, an assistant professor at Manipal University Jaipur. “Even when services are available, cost and access remain major barriers. At the same time, AI tools were improving very quickly. I wanted to examine whether AI could help narrow this gap—and also how people evaluate AI support compared to a human professional.”</p>
<p>The researchers recruited 84 graduate students in clinical psychology for the experiment. This sample included 78 females and 6 males between the ages of 21 and 25. All participants had already completed three to six months of clinical internship experience.</p>
<p>The scientists reasoned that participants with foundational psychology training would be highly attuned to the specific nuances of therapeutic communication. The study focused on three specific qualities: empathy, professionalism, and factual correctness.</p>
<p>To gather the materials for the study, the research team used a custom version of ChatGPT 4. They trained the language model using real clinical case studies and academic textbooks focused on depression and anxiety.</p>
<p>They prompted the program to act like a therapist and generate conversational responses to specific patient scenarios. The researchers then gathered transcripts from actual human therapy sessions that matched the computer-generated texts in length, topic, and complexity.</p>
<p>The final set of materials included three actual human transcripts and three artificial intelligence transcripts. The researchers then asked the participants to read these excerpts and rate them on a 5-point scale. A rating of one meant the quality was very low, while a rating of five meant the quality was very high.</p>
<p>The scientists divided the experiment into three distinct phases to test the effects of human bias. In the first phase, participants read the excerpts without knowing who wrote them. The text sources were kept completely hidden.</p>
<p>When the sources were hidden, the artificial intelligence transcripts received higher ratings across all three categories. Participants felt the computer-generated text was more empathetic, more professional, and more factually correct than the actual human therapist.</p>
<p>The researchers noted that the computer model likely received high initial scores because it uses polished, predictable language patterns that mimic reflective listening. Without any recognizable human flaws, the machine produced uniformly supportive statements that readers perceived as highly attuned to the patient’s needs.</p>
<p>In the second phase, the researchers deliberately misinformed the participants about the source of the texts. They presented the computer-generated text as if a human wrote it, and they presented the human text as if a machine wrote it.</p>
<p>During this deceptive phase, participants consistently gave higher ratings to the transcripts they believed came from a human. Even though the text was actually generated by artificial intelligence, the mere belief that a human was speaking elevated its perceived warmth and competence.</p>
<p>The actual human transcripts, which were labeled as computer-generated, received much lower scores. This psychological phenomenon aligns with affinity bias, where individuals show a natural preference for entities they relate to or perceive as similar to themselves.</p>
<p>“What surprised me was how strongly who people think is speaking shapes their evaluation,” Jain told PsyPost. “Even when the content is comparable, many people still show an ‘affinity’ or ‘human preference’ bias—greater initial trust in a human source than an AI one. It’s a reminder that adoption of AI in mental health isn’t only a technology problem; it’s also a trust and perception problem.”</p>
<p>In the third and final phase, the researchers revealed the true sources of the transcripts to the participants. Once the participants knew for certain which texts came from real therapists, the ratings shifted dramatically.</p>
<p>With the true identities revealed, the human-generated transcripts received much higher scores. The human text surpassed the artificial intelligence text in perceived empathy, factual correctness, and professionalism.</p>
<p>These shifts suggest that cognitive bias heavily influences how people experience therapeutic support. When people know a real person is behind the words, they tend to assign greater value to the interaction, likely because they trust the authentic emotional experience of a trained human.</p>
<p>“The main takeaway is: people’s judgments aren’t based only on what’s said, they’re also shaped by what they think the source is,” Jain explained. “The same conversation can be rated differently when it’s labeled as AI versus human. So as AI tools enter mental-health spaces, we should treat transparency and expectations as part of the intervention, not an afterthought. And importantly, AI may support access, but it shouldn’t be seen as a replacement for trained professionals—especially for higher-risk situations.”</p>
<p>While this research provides helpful insights, readers should keep a few limitations in mind. The sample size was relatively small and consisted mostly of female graduate students. Because these participants were training to be therapists, they might have specific biases or preferences that the general public does not share.</p>
<p>The study also focused exclusively on text-based scenarios related to depression and anxiety. Real-world therapy involves complex vocal tones, facial expressions, and unpredictable interactions that a short text transcript cannot fully capture. Additionally, the specific language model used in this study represents just one snapshot in time, meaning future models might yield different results.</p>
<p>“AI changes very fast—models and features update frequently—so our findings should be read as evidence about how people respond to AI attribution and disclosure, not as a permanent scorecard of any one AI version,” Jain noted.</p>
<p>Future research should explore how more diverse groups of people, including actual patients, respond to computer-generated therapy. Scientists might also study different psychological conditions and examine how long-term exposure to artificial intelligence affects patient trust over time.</p>
<p>Ultimately, the findings indicate that technology might support mental health access, but it cannot easily replace the authenticity of a trained professional. The researchers advise that developers should prioritize transparency as they integrate digital tools into clinical spaces.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s41347-025-00544-9" target="_blank">Perceived Authorship and Conversational Evaluations: A Study on AI-Generated vs. Human Therapist Dialogue</a>,” was authored by Samridhi Pareek and Gagan Jain.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/many-neurological-conditions-are-more-frequent-among-individuals-with-severe-mental-illness/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">Many neurological conditions are more frequent among individuals with severe mental illness</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Feb 26th 2026, 10:00</div>
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<p><p>An analysis of data on individuals with severe mental illness available in the UK Clinical Practice Research Datalink found that 13 of the 15 groups of neurological conditions considered were more prominent among people with severe mental illness than in individuals without severe mental illness at the time of their psychiatric diagnosis. Most notably, the odds of dementia and Parkinson’s disease were around 4 times higher, while the odds of having epilepsy were 3 times higher 5 years after the diagnosis of severe mental illness. The paper was published in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjment-2025-301923"><em>BMJ Mental Health</em></a>.</p>
<p>Studies indicate that individuals suffering from serious psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia, bipolar affective disorder, and other psychotic conditions have an increased likelihood of suffering from various adverse physical medical conditions. For example, these individuals have elevated rates of cardiovascular, endocrine, pulmonary, and gastrointestinal diseases, with cardiometabolic disorders receiving the most research attention.</p>
<p>However, the relationship between psychiatric and neurological conditions is not fully understood. Neurological conditions are disorders that affect the brain, spinal cord, or peripheral nerves, leading to impairments in movement, sensation, cognition, or autonomic functioning.</p>
<p>Examples include Parkinson’s disease, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, stroke, dementia, and various neuropathies, which can vary widely in cause, course, and severity. Researchers increasingly believe that many of these conditions are actually neuropsychiatric in nature. There are studies indicating that these conditions might actually develop more frequently in individuals with severe mental illness.</p>
<p>Study author Ella Burchill and her colleagues wanted to explore the frequency with which various neurological conditions occur in individuals with severe mental illnesses from 5 years before their mental illness is diagnosed to 5 years after the diagnosis. </p>
<p>While the exact causal relationship remains unclear, the authors note four possibilities for this overlap: severe mental illness and neurological conditions may share a common genetic or developmental cause; psychiatric symptoms might act as an early “prodrome” preceding the full onset of a neurological condition; severe mental illness or its treatments (such as antipsychotic medications) might cause neurological issues; or early-life neurological conditions might disrupt brain development and subsequently cause mental illness.</p>
<p>The authors identified individuals with severe mental illness from the primary care database Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD). This database is broadly representative of the UK population, containing data from approximately 24% of UK residents. This study included individuals aged 18 to 100 who first received a diagnosis of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or other psychosis between 2000 and 2018.</p>
<p>Study authors matched each of these patients with up to four individuals without severe mental illness from the same primary care practices. In total, the analysis included 68,789 individuals with severe mental illness and 274,827 individuals without severe mental illness. Study authors looked into diagnoses of 15 groups of neurological conditions at seven distinct time points: 5, 3, and 1 year prior to the diagnosis of severe mental illness; exactly at the time of the severe mental illness diagnosis; and 1, 3, and 5 years after the diagnosis.</p>
<p>The 15 groups of neurological conditions study authors considered were: multiple sclerosis (or other white matter disorders), cerebrovascular disease, dementia (inclusive of Alzheimer’s, Lewy body, vascular, human prion disorders), ataxic disorders, epilepsy (or seizures), Parkinson’s disease, parkinsonism other (secondary/ drug induced), paralysis, movement disorders other (choreiform, movement, dystonic), structural developmental anomalies or disorders of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) pressure or flow, cerebral palsy, spinal cord disorders, disorders of nerve root, plexus or peripheral nerves, motor neuron diseases or related disorders, and disorders of autonomic nervous system.</p>
<p>The results showed that, at the time of first receiving a severe mental illness diagnosis, the five most common neurological conditions were epilepsy (3.71%), cerebrovascular disease (3.02%), dementia (1.65%), Parkinson’s disease (0.68%) and multiple sclerosis (0.32%). Thirteen groups of neurological conditions were more prevalent among participants with severe mental illness compared to the control group (individuals without severe mental illness) at the time of diagnosis of severe mental illness. Eleven were more prevalent at all time points, including times before the diagnosis.</p>
<p>At the time of the diagnosis, the most elevated odds for individuals with severe mental illness were for “other parkinsonism” (a category that includes secondary or drug-induced tremors, which was 8.3 times higher compared to the control group), and other movement disorders (3 times higher). At 5 years after the diagnoses, the odds of suffering from dementia and Parkinson’s disease were roughly 4 times higher, and the odds of having epilepsy were 3 times higher than in the control group.</p>
<p>Importantly, the researchers found significant differences based on the specific type of mental illness. While individuals with bipolar disorder and other psychoses had elevated rates for almost all neurological conditions, those with schizophrenia had rates closer to the general population for many conditions. The authors suggest this could be due to “diagnostic overshadowing”—a phenomenon where doctors mistakenly attribute a patient’s genuine physical or neurological symptoms to their pre-existing schizophrenia, leading to delayed or missed diagnoses.</p>
<p>“Many neurological conditions have higher prevalence in the SMI [severe mental illness] cohort compared with those without SMI,” the study authors concluded.</p>
<p>The study contributes to the scientific understanding of the relationships between psychotic and neurological disorders. However, it should be noted that the observational design of this study does not allow strict causal inferences to be derived from the results.</p>
<p>The paper, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjment-2025-301923">Temporal relationship between severe mental illness and neurological conditions in a UK primary care cohort,</a>” was authored by Ella Burchill, Jonathan P. Rogers, David P. J. Osborn, Glyn Lewis, Anthony S. David, Joseph F. Hayes, and Naomi Launders.</p></p>
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<p><strong>Forwarded by:<br />
Michael Reeder LCPC<br />
Baltimore, MD</strong></p>
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